


Sticky Notes for a Sticky Situation

by Howlingdawn



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), set after hidden souls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-25 20:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16204832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howlingdawn/pseuds/Howlingdawn
Summary: When everyone is resurrected after the dusting, Wanda has some problems readjusting. When Vision and Pietro can't figure out what's wrong, Tony steps in to help.





	Sticky Notes for a Sticky Situation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a challenge where my prompt was "I will not have passive aggressive post-it notes in my house!"
> 
> This is set after Hidden Souls, which I realize I haven't finished yet, but tbh if you thought I wouldn't resurrect Vision, you, my friend, were incorrect

Tony stumbled into the compound's kitchen, stomach growling for food and the rest of him begging for caffeine. Bruce and Rhodey were both passed out back in the lab, Peter curled up between them, all four of them exhausted after spending two days in there staving off sleep. It was a common practice these last couple weeks; even now, when the sun had barely crested the horizon, he could hear people training in the gym, hear music and TV and voices from behind closed doors.

After the snap was undone, no one wanted quiet. No one wanted to be alone. Parties reached record levels of noise and destruction. The number of weddings skyrocketed worldwide. Most schools still weren't back in session, parents unwilling to let go of dusted kids, kids unwilling to leave dusted parents.

It had been an incredibly social two weeks. Tony felt like he'd seen more of the other Avengers more in these last days than he had in six years. Which, even though part of the sleep avoidance was due to nobody wanting to close their eyes and relive the dusting, he had actually rather enjoyed it all, especially when catching up on the altered three years with Pietro, and even when learning to view Loki as an ally rather than an enemy.

There was only one reunited trio Tony knew of that hadn't been celebrating like most. One person, really.

Tony went for the coffeemaker on autopilot, and he stopped to stare, blinking for a moment, at the post-it note stuck on it. _Wanda, please talk to me,_ the top line said, written in Vision's precise, perfectly spaced handwriting.

_Maybe later,_ said the bottom line, in Wanda's swirling cursive. Something about it seemed off, maybe a little sloppier than usual, as if her mind wasn't entirely on what she was writing, but Tony was too tired to process it. He just moved it to the counter instead, proceeding to start brewing his coffee.

When he went to the designated Pop-Tart cabinet, his fumbling fingers brushed against a second note. _I've purchased your favorite flavor. I suggest eating them before Thor finds them, my love._

_Thank you._

_Oof,_ Tony thought, mind beginning to awaken at the smell of the coffee. Again, the slight sloppiness of Wanda's line caught his attention. _Two words and a period. That's rough, Vision._

But still, he ignored the handwritten conversation, grabbing a random box and popping a few into the toaster. And when he went for a plate, there was a third note on the top one, this one written in a messy scrawl: _I saw you hadn't put the dishes away yet, so I did it for you real quick. Might've cracked a bowl or two…_

_I can do my own chores, Pietro._

Tony winced, remembering the few times he had tried to help Pepper do her job.

_Wait… exactly how many dishes has Pietro cracked trying to put them away with his superspeed?_

The Pop-Tarts popped out of the toaster, making him jump. "Every damn time," he muttered, going to free them from their metal prison. And when he went to sit down, there was _another_ note on the table, this one again in Pietro's barely legible writing.

_Wanda, what's wrong?_

_Nothing._

Tony dropped his plate with a sigh, leaning on the table. Looking around, he noticed more and more notes, each one started by Vision or Pietro, each one finished by Wanda. Their lines were longer, Pietro's filled with jokes, Vision's about as flowery as an A.I. could get, and hers were always short, ending in a period more often than not.

"Oh, for crying out loud," he grumbled, "I will _not_ have passive aggressive post-it notes in my compound. Friday, where are Vision and Pietro?"

_"Pietro's runnin' on his treadmill. Vision's outside, gettin' a bouquet from a delivery man."_

Tony picked up his coffee, taking a long drink, and one Pop-Tart, taking a moment to look mournfully at the others – they would be long gone by the time he got back here. Then he went to intercept Vision, finding him just as he came inside.

"Mr. Stark," he said, surprised. In one hand, he held a rather large bouquet, consisting of a rainbow of flowers in white, blues, and purples. In the other, he held a note, this one an actual card instead of a post-it note.

"Vision," Tony greeted, taking a bite of his Pop-Tart. "Nice bouquet."

He glanced at it, but his words were a deflection. "I believe Mrs. Stark-Potts has expressed her displeasure for you talking with your mouth full."

"Well, she isn't here – Friday, don't tell on me."

_"I make no guarantees, Boss."_

Tony shot a glare at the ceiling. "Look, I'm not the one who needs relationship advice."

Vision's shoulders drooped slightly. "You noticed."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "It's hard _not_ to, with you guys have an entire handwritten conversation in the kitchen."

"…It is not just in the kitchen."

"What did you two _do_?" Tony exclaimed.

Vision shrugged helplessly. "It has been this way since we… returned."

Tony bit back a sigh, instead taking a sip of coffee, considering Vision. He did have perfect recall, not to mention access to the entire internet, and over the last two years, had garnered a decent knowledge of relationships. If he had genuinely screwed up in a way he could've avoided, he would know about it. Besides, as far as Tony knew, he hadn't had a chance to screw up this royally since his resurrection.

A breeze blew through the room, mussing Tony's hair. He glared as Pietro slid to a halt. "Good, you got the flowers."

And Pietro certainly hadn't done anything to get on her nerves. He had spent the last two weeks overjoyed at getting his twin back, though his time had been monopolized by Clint, seeing as he was finally able to move past the guilt of getting him killed back in Sokovia. And Wanda had never once argued, never once tried to join them, never once tried to pull her brother away. Or maybe that was the problem?

_No, that wouldn't involve Vision. And Pietro's been trying to spend time with her – she's the one hiding away._

"What do you know about this?" Tony asked.

"All I know is, for the first time in our lives, my twin won't talk to me."

"She isn't used to it anymore," Tony reminded him. "She's got two sets of memories swirling in her head, but you were gone in the three years she actually lived through."

_Does that have something to do with it?_

Pietro pursed his lips. "It's still weird. And I'm worried about her."

_So am I._

"All right," Tony said. "You two wait here – she's probably tired of you two bugging her. I'll go talk to her."

Pietro opened his mouth, probably to protest, but thought better of it, conceding with a nod. Vision shuffled his feet, and Tony turned to leave. "Oh, and it's nice to see you two finally playing nice."

"How would you know it's 'finally'?" Pietro shot back.

"Please. You're her overprotective slightly older brother, and he's her robot boyfriend. I know how that works. Oh, and I think we should have a talk about you putting the dishes away with superspeed."

Pietro crossed his arms. "…I don't know what you mean," he grumbled. "And I'm not _over_ protective."

Shaking his head, Tony went to Wanda's room. He knocked on her door, calling "You in there, kid?" through another mouthful of breakfast. "Vision and your brother aren't with me," he added when an extended silence answered him.

"…Come in."

He went inside, quick to shut the door in case Pietro had any ideas about darting through. He couldn't really do anything about Vision maybe phasing through the wall, but it was the thought that counted, right?

Wanda was wearing a pale blue hoodie that definitely wasn't hers, fiddling with the edge of its sleeve. The TV was on, playing something dubbed in her native language, but as Tony settled on the bed with her, she flicked a finger to pause it. "I hope you know that you're cleaning up any crumbs you get on my blanket."

"It's so much easier for you, though," Tony protested playfully. She chuckled, and he shrugged. "Yeah, I know I'm cleaning them up."

"Good."

He pointed his Pop-Tart at the TV, taking a sip of coffee. "What are you watching?"

"Um, _The Flash_."

Tony arched an eyebrow. The team enjoyed watching superhero shows and movies, mostly to make fun of the inaccuracies of their lifestyle, but… "I thought you refused to watch that one."

"I did… before," she answered. "Watching a show about a speedster was too much. But in the altered timeline, it's apparently given Pietro a few ideas for new moves. And he always insists he could beat Barry in a race, but no, he really can't."

"No," Tony agreed. "Barry is far faster."

Wanda nodded, looking around her room. "Thank you for not… messing with anything these last two years."

Tony feigned a nonchalant shrug, glancing at her board of pictures. There were new ones up now, ones with Pietro, ones from their two years in hiding. "It didn't feel right."

She smiled wryly. "None of it does."

Tony looked at her. "You know why I'm here."

"I don't need to be a telepath to know that."

Tony took a breath, setting his coffee down on her nightstand. "They're just worried about you, Wanda. We all are."

"I don't need to be a telepath to know that either," she murmured, focusing on the sleeve she was playing with. "It's just… I had finally found a rhythm, a… a happiness that I didn't know I _could_ find without my brother. And a big part of that happiness was with Vision. And then I had to murder him, and watch him be murdered. So when the snap took me… It felt like a release. I didn't have to fight anymore. And to them, it's almost like it never happened."

Tony spoke gently, trying not to frustrate her, wanting to understand. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"It's… Yes, but…" She bit her lip, at a loss for words, finally picking up one of her small decorative pillows. "Pretend that this is my heart."

At Tony's nod, she tore it in half, scooping all of the stuffing out of one half. "Now this is my heart after my parents were killed." She proceeded to pack most of it back in. "Time and Pietro managed to refill most of it, but when Ultron killed him…" She pulled all of the stuffing out of both halves.

"Then, between Clint and Laura and the kids and the team…" Handful by handful, name by name, she packed the stuffing back in. "And then Viz and I started dating, and I was the happiest I had been in a long time. But without my twin, without my parents… part of my heart was still broken."

Tony nodded again, looking at the pillow. It wasn't quite full, overflowing in some spots, sparse or even empty in others. "And when Thanos took Vision, Laura, the kids, and Sam…"

Wanda clenched her fist, and a flash of scarlet tore nearly every scrap of stuffing right back out. Not even a quarter of it remained, one half completely empty.

"Every time I manage to refill my heart, it's refilled differently," she went on. "Pietro remembers a heart that his death never emptied, a heart that some version of me filled, but not _this_ me, not the way _I_ filled it. Viz remembers the unaltered timeline, but he doesn't know how his deaths emptied my heart. I'm not… I'm not the person either one of them remembers. And I can't look at them without remembering dying with them."

_So this is about the past._

"You have to explain that to them, Wanda."

She shook her head, bottom lip wobbling. "I can't."

Tony took a bite of Pop-Tart, giving himself time to choose his words. Time to mentally prepare. "Those three months in Afghanistan… I know what it's like to come home changed. Broken. And to have to face the people you know and love who are expecting one version of you, so when they get another, they falter."

Wanda looked up at him. "How did you get through it?"

"Very awkwardly," he admitted. "I didn't know how to explain why I had changed. Rhodey, he had more of an idea than anybody else, between his own past and being the one who found me, but Pepper… It didn't help that, for a while, I couldn't even bring myself to mention any specifics outside of what the doctors _needed_ to know. I didn't want to remember, and I didn't want to burden Pepper with that knowledge.

"But they were patient. All they wanted was for me to heal. And ten years later, I still haven't quite done it – some wounds never heal, as you well know – but bits and pieces came out. And they did everything they could to understand. And, slowly, we found the new normal. And-" He held up his hand, sunlight through the window glinting off his wedding ring. "-life is good."

"So talking to them is the only way," Wanda concluded, dropping her gaze.

Tony held his hands up in a shrug. "Communication is key, Wanda. Isolating yourself certainly isn't doing the job."

Wanda sighed, burying her face in her hands.

Tony swallowed down his last bit of Pop-Tart. "I know it feels impossible, facing someone you so much as tried to kill. Talking to Bucky or Loki is still… awkward, to say the least. And I can't even imagine feeling your brother die, let alone what you went through to kill Vision. But you have to talk to them at some point, Wanda."

"I killed him," she rasped. "I was in his head, Tony, I felt his pain, the pain _I_ was causing. But more than that – I just felt his love. For me. That's all he was thinking. 'I love you, Wanda.' Over and over and over again. And that was Pietro's last thought in Sokovia, 'I love you' layered over his pain. And now when I look at them, when I sense their minds, it's that same exact mix of pain and love. Love for me, and pain _I'm_ causing them because I can't- I can't handle being in the same room as them anymore- and I- I-"

Her words devolved into a sob, and Tony quickly reached to hug her. "Come here, kid," he murmured. She melted into him, burying her face in his shoulder, folding her legs up. Tony let her cry, gently rubbing her back.

"I know it's hard," Tony went on when her sobs started to quiet. "But you're one of the strongest people I've ever known, Wanda – if anyone can get past this, it's you."

She sniffled, shifting to rest her chin on his shoulder, and Tony turned to follow her gaze to her photos. Tony let his own gaze linger on a picture of the trio playing Skee-Ball, Pietro punching the air in triumph as his score came out the highest, Vision and Wanda using his distraction to sneak a kiss. "You want that, Wanda, I know you do, and so do they."

When she still hesitated, he carefully extricated himself from her grip to stand up, offering his hand to her. "You already know how to explain it, kid, and I'll be right there with you if you want. So grab another pillow and let's go. But, ah, you're cleaning up the stuffing."

A smile broke across her face as she laughed. "That's fair," she allowed, taking Tony's hand and picking up another pillow, quickly wiping her cheeks dry. "This gives me an excuse to do some shopping."

"As if you need one."

"True."

They found Pietro and Vision in the same room where Tony had left them, Vision still holding the bouquet. Wanda faltered a little, but Tony squeezed her hand, guiding her to the couch. Vision and Pietro sat in the chairs opposite them, silent and attentive as Wanda ran through her pillow explanation.

"…and I know you two want things to go back to normal, but I… I can't do normal. Not the old normal. I just… need time to get used to things again."

"Of _course_ we'll give you time, Wanda," Vision said, putting the bouquet down. "All we ask is that you stop hiding from us."

"What he said," Pietro agreed, leaning forward to take her hand from Tony. "I hate that there's a timeline where I left you, but I know you need time to recover from that. I just don't want you to do it alone."

Wanda smiled, small but glowing. "How about we start with a morning run?"

"And then breakfast?" Pietro checked.

"And then breakfast."

Pietro jumped upright. "Let's go!"

He zipped out of the room, leaving Vision and Wanda to follow at normal human speed. Before she left, though, she paused in the doorway, looking back. "Thank you, Tony."

He smiled. "Any time, kid. Now go enjoy running with a speedster and a flying android."

"I will… do my best."

Pietro returned in a blur, pausing just long enough to give Wanda half a second of warning before he scooped her up and ran out the door. Shaking his head in amusement, Tony started to lean back, settling deeper into the couch.

_My Pop-Tarts._

He sprang up to hurry back to the kitchen.

Where he found Thor sitting at the table, the last piece of the last Pop-Tart disappearing into his mouth. Thor noticed him mid-chew, slowing but not stopping, and glanced between him and the plate, pointing at the remaining crumbs. "…Were those yours?" Beside him, Loki took a sip of tea, rolling his eyes.

Tony's shoulders slumped. _No good deed goes unpunished._


End file.
